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Bad modern cheap radios with really bad performance
You've seen them, my brother had one someone gave him, a combo AM/FM/LED flashlight. Has very little selectivity, as if they didn't bother with a filter in the IF stage. Uses one of those AM/FM radio chips, so sensitivity is cheap, but you still need to spend a little more for a decent IF filter...
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#2
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A LOT of 'em have "Crosley" written on 'em... Poor Powel must be flippin' in his grave...
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Benevolent Despot |
#3
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The Chinese must produce hundreds of them hourly - I see cheapo giveaway radios all the time. Mostly with big insurance company logos....
On a port visit to the UAE, we visited Dubai, and on an excursion away from the gold souk, some friends and I visited one of their versions of a 5 and dime store. Everything in the place was less than 15 Dirhams (~ $4.50). Among the dozens of radios they had for sale were multiband "Sonny" and "Grundid" radios for 6, 8 and 10 dirhams, and these little clip-on FM radios with autoscan and earphones for 5 dirhams. No volume control, no on-off switch, just a scan switch that moves you up the FM band (not marked, but scans locally just fine). You plug in the earphones and it comes on. I bought three to play with - the scan up the FM band was quick and the reception was remarkably good, but mono. I tore one open to see the chipset, thinking it might be a TDA7000 knockoff, but no markings on the chip at all, nor any of the two or three surface mount transistors. I still have one of them - the battery is dead, but it probably still works. Really thin plastic case - fragile as can be. I left the place after spending about 11 dollars (42 Dirhams) and got 6 multimeters (like those that Harbor freight gives away, with batteries and nice leads!), three radios, a half dozen white LED-based tap-lights, and a multipack of some really nice mint gum. A buddy bought one of the little multiband radios for 8 Dirhams, and picked up just one station - on about 3 or 4 points on the dial. One IF can , one chip, and two diodes in the whole radio - for 6 bands? Pure crap. The one Radio Shack I found in the mall there had a whole wall of power transformers - and they were ALL 120V primary! This in a part of the world where 220/240 is the line voltage. I thought that to be quite odd, if not stupid.
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Brian USN RET (Avionics / Cal) CET- Consumer Repair and Avionics ('88) "Capacitor Cosmetologist since '79" When fuses go to work, they quit! |
#4
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Going back a few years, the GE Superadio, that we all know and love, uses the same Toshiba main chip, as even their lower end, small clock and portable radios. The main difference is the front end board and some of the components in the output stage, plus higher battery voltage. The output stage is in that chip! The chip doesn't even have a heat sink on it! Even though, the output stage seems to put out more than a watt. |
#5
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Nothing was worse than those radios GPX put out in the 80's/early 90's.
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Audiokarma |
#6
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How about Lenoxx sound?
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#7
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Since AM radio in the US and Canada is now mostly talk, today's radio manufacturers probably don't see the sense in designing the AM section of AM/FM radios for high fidelity; the FM in most of these is probably not much better. I have a "Windsor" branded AM-FM clock radio that works well enough in my area (a small town about 40 miles from most Cleveland radio stations), but the AM isn't much better than a glorified crystal set. When I lived in the suburbs, I once had a Zenith integrated stereo system with an AM tuner that was so bad I was actually getting short wave around 1000 kHz at night; that system's tuner must have been as cheaply designed as the one in my clock radio, although the latter at least doesn't turn itself into a shortwave receiver after dark. Maybe living in a small town well outside greater Cleveland, with its much weaker radio signals, has something to do with it.
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. |
#8
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What irritates me a lot more than a cheap radio performing badly, is how bad AM sounds on some more expensive modern units. For example, in a lot of modern cars, or in stereo receivers, it seems like it's nothing but a poorly implemented after thought.
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#9
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A fellow collector remarked that the sound is somewhat compressed at the station, for better results when using solid state transmitters???? I know someone could chime-in with a better understanding of this theory. The AM on my Toyota Prius, doesn't sound that good. I bought an older Japanese built HH Scott receiver, that was designed for better AM reception, as it has a three gang AM tuning condenser and tuned RF stage. |
#10
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Tom C. Zenith: The quality stays in EVEN after the name falls off! What I want. --> http://www.videokarma.org/showpost.p...62&postcount=4 |
Audiokarma |
#11
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I think the problem has to do with frequency response. AM can have decent frequency response up to 10,000 Hz, but modern receivers roll it off at 5,000 and even lower. I think they basically expect that it will only be used for talk radio, and no buying decisions will be affected by a bad AM tuner, making quality a non issue.
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#12
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See http://pw2.netcom.com/~wa2ise/radios...tml#solidstate where I change out the narrow ceramic IF filters with LC circuits or a wider ceramic filter (usually found in narrowband FM transcievers).
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#13
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The problem with any cheap radio made in the past 2 plus decades sucks.
Selectivity,Sensitivity is in the toilet.Stereo separation is in the toilet if the radio is stereo FM. I rather have a radio with 8 to 10 transistors then a radio with 100 plus in a chip. My 1970's Kmart or Barkers 6 transistor specials or my 1970's Realistic AM/FM handheld will do better then any crap from today. Speaking of cheap all in the one radios.I have a Totes crank up radio.It sucks big time on picking up stations even with batteries.I got it at Big Lots for $5 bucks. |
#14
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You said it! Those cheap AM-FM-FM stereo radios have almost no stereo separation whatsoever because the speakers are so close to each other. (In fact, the word "stereo" used to describe these sets means nothing; it is probably more of a selling point than anything else--and the stereo decoder, almost certainly a cheap integrated circuit, is probably as BOTL as you can get.) The only way you could hope to get anywhere near decent stereo separation from these sets is if you used them with headphones, and even then I'd have my doubts about the sound quality. I presently own two AM/FM/stereo FM radios that don't sound bad (the FM on one quit about ten years ago), but the radios are still nowhere near large enough to provide adequate separation. My Panasonic boom box is perhaps a foot or so long, but I am sure the stereo separation leaves an awful lot to be desired. I owned a Sanyo AM-FM-stereo FM boom box in the '80s which had the same problem, only the speakers were even closer to each other than my Panasonic's are--mainly because the Sanyo was in a squarish-shaped box, and the Panasonic boom box is in a much longer cabinet. I still wouldn't call the Panasonic box hi-fi, though.
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. Last edited by Jeffhs; 05-09-2015 at 07:57 PM. |
#15
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As I walk through BJs Wholesale or Walmart .Its sad just looking at those big oversize radios with 6 plus speakers that have no or alittle stereo separation.Nevermind adding the tuners suck too.Atlease they can add a stereo-wide switch to make it sound better.I probably have those Sanyo's and Panasonic's in my boombox collection. Today people are now more interesting with those streamboxes or Iphone boxes which I see next to those so called stereo sets on the store shelves. I have a sad feeling we will here in the states will end up with digital radio like Norway sooner or later. |
Audiokarma |
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